FTCCI asks Telangana govt to roll back collection of trade license fee to earlier system

Hyderabad, Mar 4 (KNN) Federation of Telangana Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FTCCI) on Friday urged the Telangana government to urgently resolve some of the key issues faced by MSMEs despite the state being the most progressive and investor friendly.

The industry body’s president Anil Agarwal said high trade licence fee, industrial property tax, cost of energy and the delays in disbursement of incentives are some of the key problems facing industry, reported TOI.

He has urged the state government to scrap GO No 147 issued in September 2020 and go back to the old system. 

Agarwal termed the trade licence fee collected by municipal corporations as double taxation.

He pointed out the hike in bills as earlier industries which were paying around Rs 7,000, and are now saddled with bills running into lakhs of rupees because trade licence fee is also being charged on a per sq ft basis like property tax, he explained.

Telangana has one of the highest power tariffs levied on industries in country, he said while additional surcharge was introduced as a temporary measure to allow recovery of stranded power costs of DISCOMs it is now discouraging industrial units from procuring power from open access.  (KNN Bureau)